Notes on
Molly’s Monologue
from Ulysses
by James Joyce
• On first looking at the text →
evident deviations from usual
narrative language:
* No punctuation
* No paragraphs
* Incorrect spelling
* No apparent logical connections
An extreme example of interior
monologue
Content: Molly’s half-conscious thoughts
• from the present (night)
• to the immediate future (following day)
• a specific episode in the past (16 years
ago, the time of Leopold’s marriage
proposal)
• her past youth in Gibraltar
Memories are intertwined and seem to melt
into each other at the end
the past, and in particular her experience in
Gibraltar, looks more attractive
landscape
intensity of experience
FLOWERS
Word flower(s) repeated at least 8
times in the passage
All sorts of shapes and smells and
colours
And fields of oats and wheat,
primroses, violets, rhododendrons,
figtrees, rosegardens, jessamine,
geraniums, cactuses
Connected with
• the house
• herself, all women (woman’s
body)
• nature
• Gibraltar
GIBRALTAR
Exotic atmosphere recreated through an
accumulation of images:
different people (Spanish girls, Greeks,
jews, etc., Moors)
details of landscape and colours (flowers,
impetuous nature, red sea at sunset)
elements of places (posadas, the boat at
Algeciras, wine shops, governor’s
house)
noises/sounds (girls laughing, torrent,
castanets, clucking, games)
Lots of references to sensory
experiences, connected with all
the senses:
• smell
• taste
• touch
• sight
• hearing
thoughts and impressions are connected by
AND
(Molly thinks through images following one
another)
overlapping of memories
association of different thoughts and
impressions: created by similar sounds or
recurring words
SUN
FLOWERS
YES
End of the passage: crescendo in
rhythm brought about by the
closer and closer repetition of
YES → a list of images of
Gibraltar followed by the
recollection of when she made
love for the first time and of when
she answered ‘Yes’ to Leopold
Molly’s character → womanhood,
femininity
• enthusiasm for life
• amorality
• genuine sensuality
YES: a way to review her thoughts and
memories before going to sleep
her answer to Leopold’s marriage
proposal and to the boy in her past
a symbolic openness to and acceptance
of life
actress Niamh Cusack describes Molly Bloom
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2E41Uk5vrI
Yes ?